Copyright
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Three years ago investigative reporter Parker Davidson barely survived a brutal attack by his psychopathic ex-boyfriend. It’s given him a dim view of romance.
When Parker’s ex escapes from a maximum security prison, LAPD Lieutenant Henry Stagge is tasked with making sure that Parker doesn’t end up a victim a second—and final—time.
Most cops believe Parker got what he deserved, but over the course of a few very tense hours, Henry begins to wonder if there’s more to Parker than he thought.
Second chances happen in the strangest places—and at the strangest times.
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain
NIGHT WATCH
Josh Lanyon
How could you not know?
That was the question everyone asked. Friends. Family. Reporters. The cops. I think even Ricky may have said it the night he tried to kill me.
It was the question I continued to ask myself three years later.
How the hell could you not have known?
Because I didn’t want to know?
Because by the time I began to wonder, it was already too late?
A sudden gust of wind hit the unmarked police sedan, shaking me out of my thoughts. I took note of the distant snow-dusted mountains. Sharp-edged blue silica and granite outlined against darker blue skies. Not much farther now.
I glanced in the side mirror. Caught a slice of my own reflection: dark hair, dark sunglasses, dark and unshaven jaw. The road behind us was empty except for the small speck of an RV we’d passed minutes earlier.
That’s the turnoff up ahead?
Lt. Stagge asked, double-checking the directions recited by the mechanical voice of the GPS.
Yeah.
A flash flood had taken out the faded, bullet-riddled sign over a year ago. The road department never got around to replacing it. Nobody lived out this way. Not even the deer that Deer Lane had been named for.
Beautiful country,
Lt. Stagge said, and I laughed.
He looked away from the road, a trace of surprise on his face as he met my disbelieving gaze. I grew up in Lompoc. I like the high desert,
he said.
Sure.
I stared ahead at the worn and fading highway. Grayed and pitted asphalt, edges crumbling away to sand and sagebrush. The morning sunshine cast luminous golden light over the stark and unforgiving landscape.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched Lt. Stagge. Not that I suspected him of anything; it was just hard to tune him out.
He was about my age. Late thirties. Medium height, compact build. Light eyes that could have been blue or maybe green. Gray? Square shoulders, square jaw. The kind of haircut that only looked good on a marine. Which, he’d probably been before he’d joined LAPD.
He had that kind of blunt, serviceable attractiveness you see in a lot of those Died in the Line of Duty photos.
I did not want Lt. Stagge dying in the line of duty protecting me.
Enough people had already died thanks to me.
That’s what happens when you fall in love with a psychopath.
The first time I ever saw Ricky Barbour, he was testifying in court against another inmate who had assaulted and nearly killed a prison guard.
Ricky was in his early twenties then. Blond and bearded, with soft brown eyes. In addition to being handsome, he was polite and well-spoken. A very different animal from the predators he was speaking out against. I was impressed by his courage.
Pretty white boys don’t do well in the prison system, and his guts and integrity
